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Article
Publication date: 7 March 2016

Ranganayakulu Chennu

The purpose of this paper is to carry out numerical modeling of single-blow transient analysis using FLUENT porous media model for estimation of heat transfer and pressure drop…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to carry out numerical modeling of single-blow transient analysis using FLUENT porous media model for estimation of heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of offset and wavy fins.

Design/methodology/approach

A computational fluid dynamics program FLUENT has been used to predict the design data in terms of j and f factors for plate-fin heat exchanger wavy and offset strip fins, which are widely used in aerospace applications.

Findings

The suitable design data in terms of Colburn j and Fanning friction f factors is generated and presented correlations for wavy fins covering the laminar, transition and turbulent flow regimes.

Originality/value

The correlations for the friction factor f and Colburn factor j have been found to be good by comparing with other references. The correlations can be used by the heat exchanger designers and can reduce the number of tests and modification of the prototype to a minimum for similar applications and types of fins.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 26 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 November 2011

Ranganayakulu Chennu and Pallavi Paturu

In aerospace applications, due to the severe limitations on the weight and space envelope, it is mandatory to use high performance compact heat exchangers (CHEs) for enhancing the…

Abstract

Purpose

In aerospace applications, due to the severe limitations on the weight and space envelope, it is mandatory to use high performance compact heat exchangers (CHEs) for enhancing the heat transfer rate. The most popularly used ones in CHEs are the plain fins, offset strip fins (OSFs), louvered fins and wavy fins. Amongst these fin types, wavy and offset fins assume a lot of importance due to their enhanced thermo‐hydraulic performance. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of geometrical fin parameters, in addition to Reynolds number, on the thermo‐hydraulic performance of OSFs.

Design/methodology/approach

A computational fluid dynamics approach is used to conduct a number of numerical experiments for determination of thermo‐hydraulic performance of OSFs considering the various geometrical parameters, which are generally used in the aerospace industry. These investigations include the study of flow pattern for laminar, transition and turbulent regions. Studies are conducted with different fin geometries and comparisons are made with available data in open literature. Finally, the generalized correlations are developed for OSFs taking all geometrical parameters into account for the entire range of operations of the aerospace industry covering laminar, transition and turbulent regions. In addition, the effects of various geometrical parameters are presented as parametric studies.

Findings

Thermo‐hydraulic design of CHEs is strongly dependent upon the predicted/measured dimensionless performance (Colburn factorjand Fanning frictionf” vs Reynolds number Re) of heat transfer surfaces. Several types of OSFs used in the compact plate‐fin heat exchangers are analyzed numerically.

Research limitations/implications

The present numerical analysis is carried out for “air” media and hence these results may not be accurate for other fluids with large variations of Prandtl numbers.

Practical implications

In open literature, these fins are generally evaluated as a function of Reynolds number experimentally, which are expensive. However, their performance will also depend to some extent on geometrical parameters such as fin thickness, fin spacing, offset fin length and fin height.

Originality/value

This numerical estimation can reduce the number of tests/experiments to a minimum for similar applications.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 21 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 5 February 2018

Ranganayakulu Chennu

The purpose of this study is to find the thermo-hydraulic performances of compact heat exchangers (CHE’s), which are strongly depending upon the prediction of performance of…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to find the thermo-hydraulic performances of compact heat exchangers (CHE’s), which are strongly depending upon the prediction of performance of various types of heat transfer surfaces such as offset strip fins, wavy fins, rectangular fins, triangular fins, triangular and rectangular perforated fins in terms of Colburnjand Fanning frictionffactors.

Design/methodology/approach

Numerical methods play a major role for analysis of compact plate-fin heat exchangers, which are cost-effective and fast. This paper presents the on-going research and work carried out earlier for single-phase steady-state heat transfer and pressure drop analysis on CHE passages and fins. An analysis of a cross-flow plate-fin compact heat exchanger, accounting for the individual effects of two-dimensional longitudinal heat conduction through the exchanger wall, inlet fluid flow maldistribution and inlet temperature non-uniformity are carried out using a Finite Element Method (FEM).

Findings

The performance deterioration of high-efficiency cross-flow plate-fin compact heat exchangers have been reviewed with the combined effects of wall longitudinal heat conduction and inlet fluid flow/temperature non-uniformity using a dedicated FEM analysis. It is found that the performance deterioration is quite significant in some typical applications due to the effects of wall longitudinal heat conduction and inlet fluid flow non-uniformity on cross-flow plate-fin heat exchangers. A Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) program FLUENT has been used to predict the design data in terms of “jandffactors for plate-fin heat exchanger fins. The suitable design data are generated using CFD analysis covering the laminar, transition and turbulent flow regimes for various types of fins.

Originality/value

The correlations for the friction factorfand Colburn factorj” have been found to be good. The correlations can be used by the heat exchanger designers and can reduce the number of tests and modification of the prototype to a minimum for similar applications and types of fins.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 28 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 25 January 2021

Faezeh Nejati Barzoki, Ghanbar Ali Sheikhzadeh, Morteza Khoshvaght Aliabadi and Ali Akbar Abbasian Arani

The purpose of this paper is to investigate thermohydraulic characteristics of turbulent flow of water (4,000 = Re = 10,000) in a rectangular channel equipped with perforated…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate thermohydraulic characteristics of turbulent flow of water (4,000 = Re = 10,000) in a rectangular channel equipped with perforated chevron plat-fin (PCPF) with different vortex generators (VGs) shapes.

Design/methodology/approach

First, three general shapes of VGs including rectangular, triangular and half circle, are compared to each other. Then, the various shapes of rectangular VGs, (horizontal, vertical and square) and triangular VGs, (forward, backward and symmetric) are evaluated. To comprehensively evaluate the thermohydraulic performance of the PCPF with various VG shapes, the relationship between the Colburn factor and the friction factor (j/f) is presented, then a performance index (η) is applied using these factors.

Findings

Results show that the enhanced models of the PCPF, which are equipped with VGs, have higher values of j/f ratio and η as compared with the reference model (R). Further, the half-circle VG with the lowest pressure drop values (about 2.4% and 4.9%, averagely as compared with the S and ST vortex generators), shows the highest thermohydraulic performance among the proposed shapes. The maximum of performance index of 1.14 is found for the HC vortex generator at Re = 4,000. It is also found that the square and forward triangular VGs, have the best thermohydraulic performance among the rectangular and triangular VGs respectively and the highest performance index of 1.13 and 1.11 are reported for these VGs.

Originality/value

The thermohydraulic performance of the PCPF with different vortex generators VGs shapes have been investigated.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 31 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 27 May 2014

Morteza Khoshvaght Aliabadi, Faramarz Hormozi and Elham Hosseini Rad

The main purpose of this paper is the generation of the heat transfer and pressure drop correlations by considering three working fluids, namely air, water, and ethylene glycol…

Abstract

Purpose

The main purpose of this paper is the generation of the heat transfer and pressure drop correlations by considering three working fluids, namely air, water, and ethylene glycol, for the wavy plate-fin heat exchangers (PFHEs).

Design/methodology/approach

In order to present the general correlations, various models with different geometrical parameters should be tested. Because of the problems, such as difficult, long time, and costly fabrication of the wavy fins in experimental tests, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) calculations can be a useful method for the generation of the heat transfer and pressure drop correlations with eliminating the experimental problems. Hence, the effective design parameters of the wavy plate-fin, including fin pitch, fin height, wave length, fin thickness, wave amplitude, and fin length, and also their levels were recognized from the literature. The Taguchi method was applied to formulate the CFD simulation work.

Findings

The simulation results were compared and validated with an available experimental data. The mean deviations of the Colburn factor, j, and Fanning friction factor, f, values between the simulation results and the experimental data were 3.74 and 9.07 percent, respectively. The presented air correlations and experimental data were in a good agreement, so that approximately 95 percent of the experimental data were correlated within ±12 percent. The j factor values varied for the different working fluids, while the f factor values did not sensibly change.

Practical implications

The presented correlations can be used to estimate the thermal-hydraulic characteristics and to design of the compact PFHE with the wavy channels.

Originality/value

This manuscript presents the new correlations for the compact PFHEs with the way channels by considering all the geometrical parameters and the working fluids with the different Prandtl numbers, 0.7, 7, and 150.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 24 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 November 2018

Banjara Kotresha and N. Gnanasekaran

This paper aims to discuss about the two-dimensional numerical simulations of fluid flow and heat transfer through high thermal conductivity metal foams filled in a vertical…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to discuss about the two-dimensional numerical simulations of fluid flow and heat transfer through high thermal conductivity metal foams filled in a vertical channel using the commercial software ANSYS FLUENT.

Design/methodology/approach

The Darcy Extended Forchheirmer model is considered for the metal foam region to evaluate the flow characteristics and the local thermal non-equilibrium heat transfer model is considered for the heat transfer analysis; thus the resulting problem becomes conjugate heat transfer.

Findings

Results obtained based on the present simulations are validated with the experimental results available in literature and the agreement was found to be good. Parametric studies reveal that the Nusselt number increases in the presence of porous medium with increasing thickness but the effect because of the change in thermal conductivity was found to be insignificant. The results of heat transfer for the metal foams filled in the vertical channel are compared with the clear channel in terms of Colburn j factor and performance factor.

Practical implications

This paper serves as the current relevance in electronic cooling so as to open up more parametric and optimization studies to develop new class of materials for the enhancement of heat transfer.

Originality/value

The novelty of the present study is to quantify the effect of metal foam thermal conductivity and thickness on the performance of heat transfer and hydrodynamics of the vertical channel for an inlet velocity range of 0.03-3 m/s.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 29 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 September 2002

G. Comini, C. Nonino and S. Savino

The paper adopts a simplified two‐dimensional approach to deal with convective heat and mass transfer in laminar flows of humid air through wavy finned‐tube exchangers. The…

Abstract

The paper adopts a simplified two‐dimensional approach to deal with convective heat and mass transfer in laminar flows of humid air through wavy finned‐tube exchangers. The computational domain is spatially periodic, with fully developed conditions prevailing at a certain distance from the inlet section. Both the entrance and the fully developed flow region are investigated. In the fully developed region, periodicities in the flow, temperature and mass concentration fields are taken into account. The approach is completely general, even if the finite element method is used for the discretizations. In the application section, velocity, temperature, and mass concentration fields are computed first. Then apparent friction factors, Nusselt numbers, Colburn factors for heat and mass transfer, and goodness factors are evaluated both in the entrance and in the fully developed region.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 12 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 7 July 2023

Kiran Kumar K, Kotresha Banjara and Kishan Naik

This study aims to present the numerical analysis of exergy transfer and irreversibility through the discrete filling of high-porosity aluminum metal foams inside the horizontal…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to present the numerical analysis of exergy transfer and irreversibility through the discrete filling of high-porosity aluminum metal foams inside the horizontal pipe.

Design/methodology/approach

In this study, the heater is embedded on the pipe’s circumference and is assigned with known heat input. To enhance the heat transfer, metal foam of 10 pores per inch with porosity 0.95 is filled into the pipe. In filling, two kinds of arrangements are made, in the first arrangement, the metal foam is filled adjacent to the inner wall of the pipe [Model (1)–(3)], and in the second arrangement, the foam is located at the center of the pipe [Models (4)–(6)]. So, six different models are examined in this research for a fluid velocity ranging from 0.7 to7 m/s under turbulent flow conditions. Darcy Extended Forchheimer is combined with local thermal non-equilibrium models for forecasting the flow and heat transfer features via metal foams.

Findings

The numerical methodology implemented in this study is confirmed by comparing the outcomes with the experimental outcomes accessible in the literature and found a fairly good agreement between them. The application of the second law of thermodynamics via metal foams is the novelty of current investigation. The evaluation of thermodynamic performance includes the parameters such as mean exergy-based Nusselt number (Nue), rate of irreversibility, irreversibility distribution ratio (IDR), merit function (MF) and non-dimensional exergy destruction (I*). In all the phases, Models (1)–(3) exhibit better performance than Models (4)–(6).

Practical implications

The present study helps to enhance the heat transfer performance with the introduction of metal foams and reveals the importance of available energy (exergy) in the system which helps in arriving at optimum design criteria for the thermal system.

Originality/value

The uniqueness of this study is to analyze the impact of discrete metal foam filling on exergy and irreversibility in a pipe under turbulent flow conditions.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 33 no. 10
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 16 December 2019

Samer Ali, Zein Alabidin Shami, Ali Badran and Charbel Habchi

In this paper, self-sustained second mode oscillations of flexible vortex generator (FVG) are produced to enhance the heat transfer in two-dimensional laminar flow regime. The…

78

Abstract

Purpose

In this paper, self-sustained second mode oscillations of flexible vortex generator (FVG) are produced to enhance the heat transfer in two-dimensional laminar flow regime. The purpose of this study is to determine the critical Reynolds number at which FVG becomes more efficient than rigid vortex generators (RVGs).

Design/methodology/approach

Ten cases were studied with different Reynolds numbers varying from 200 to 2,000. The Nusselt number and friction coefficients of the FVG cases are compared to those of RVG and empty channel at the same Reynolds numbers.

Findings

For Reynolds numbers higher than 800, the FVG oscillates in the second mode causing a significant increase in the velocity gradients generating unsteady coherent flow structures. The highest performance was obtained at the maximum Reynolds number for which the global Nusselt number is improved by 35.3 and 41.4 per cent with respect to empty channel and rigid configuration, respectively. Moreover, the thermal enhancement factor corresponding to FVG is 72 per cent higher than that of RVG.

Practical implications

The results obtained here can help in the design of novel multifunctional heat exchangers/reactors by using flexible tabs and inserts instead of rigid ones.

Originality/value

The originality of this paper is the use of second mode oscillations of FVG to enhance heat transfer in laminar flow regime.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 30 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 June 2003

G. Comini, C. Nonino and S. Savino

By neglecting the influence of tubes, this paper adopts a simplified two‐dimensional approach to deal with laminar convection of air through wavy finned‐tube exchangers. Pressure…

Abstract

By neglecting the influence of tubes, this paper adopts a simplified two‐dimensional approach to deal with laminar convection of air through wavy finned‐tube exchangers. Pressure drop and heat transfer characteristics are investigated in the fully developed region of the flow channels between adjacent fins. The solutions are presented for several space ratios (height over length of a module) and two corrugation angles. They concern laminar flows both below and above the onset of the self‐sustained oscillations that precede the transition to turbulence. Fully developed velocity and thermal fields are computed by imposing anti‐periodic conditions at inlet/outlet sections of a single calculation cell. In the range of Reynolds numbers investigated, Nusselt numbers and friction factors first increase with space ratios (up to a value depending on the corrugation angle), then start decreasing with increasing space ratios.

Details

International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow, vol. 13 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0961-5539

Keywords

1 – 10 of 33